


Decadence

by The_Plaid_Slytherin



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: First Time, M/M, Post-War for the Dawn, Shaving, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:54:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25770016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/pseuds/The_Plaid_Slytherin
Summary: The dragon queen has spared Stannis's life. Together, he and Davos must decide where to go from there.
Relationships: Stannis Baratheon/Davos Seaworth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Ocean Witch, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	Decadence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



It was snowing the afternoon Stannis was released from the holding cell. Davos didn't know what business he had waiting for him in his quarters—they barely qualified as Stannis's quarters at all, of course, but they were the rooms the queen had directed him to use. 

"Oh. You're still here." The surprise on Stannis's face was raw and unguarded, like he had expected to be abandoned. He brushed snow from his cloak and stepped inside. 

"Of course I am, sire." Davos would have felt hurt if he'd thought Stannis had put any malice into the thought, but he knew Stannis simply must have expected to be abandoned; everyone else had. 

"I am no longer that." Stannis sighed, his gaunt face with its growth of beard making him look older. "And I know you would never abandon me, Davos. I just thought perhaps the queen might have sent you on your way." 

Davos had actually secured Stannis's release by promising to take charge of him, but that was something that could wait for later. He wanted to take Stannis in his arms and hold him, but that could also wait, however much he could not look at Stannis without thinking how much this man needed to be held. 

"No, my lord," he said, sliding back into the old form of address. "We will go home together." 

"Home." Stannis's face clouded. "Storm's End is home." 

"Aye." Davos braced himself for being told he could go back to his lands—Stannis had told him this often in the tense days and weeks leading up to the last battle against the Others. The last time had been right before the first wave of the army of the dead had hit. Stannis had obviously not meant it, had just seemed to want to reassure himself that Davos was willingly by his side. And then he had kissed him.

It had been the briefest, most chaste kiss Davos had ever received, but their lips had touched. Directly after, Stannis had dropped the faceplate of his armor and they'd braced themselves for battle, the last intimacy forgotten. 

Davos had never been able to forget it, though, not through the battle, and its aftermath when Queen Daenerys had come with her dragons and then turned her gaze toward Stannis. 

Davos still felt like fainting when he remembered negotiating with her, the young woman old beyond her years. He'd pledged the fealty of both himself and Stannis (he would have to tell him that later, too) and had walked away with the distinct impression she had misinterpreted the precise nature of their relationship. He was not going to correct her if she'd freed Stannis because of that. 

"What would you like now? A meal? A bath?" 

"They fed me in the cell." 

Probably not enough, Davos suspected, but he wasn't going to argue that, either. "A bath, then." 

"Thank you, Davos." Stannis looked so lost that it was difficult for Davos not to reach out to him, but he soldiered on. This was his liege, if not his king. He could not hold him. 

The tub was set up behind a screen, for which Davos was privately glad, both because it kept Stannis from catching a chill in the air, and because he didn't have to look at Stannis's nude body. All he had to do now were listen to the sounds of Stannis's bath and not think about being in the tub with him. 

He busied himself gathering the shaving things; he knew Stannis wouldn't ask, but he would feel much better clean-shaven. 

"You, Davos?" Stannis looked perplexed to find Davos standing beside a chair, stropping the razor. At least, Davos decided to interpret the expression as perplexity rather than arousal. 

"Me, my lord. You don't want anyone else in here tonight, do you? And I assure you you'll feel much better. 

Stannis rubbed his beard. "You're right. Get rid of this thing and let me feel halfway human again." 

He sat, gathering the robe he wore around himself. Davos settled a towel over his shoulders. "Are you cold, my lord?"

"No." 

"Let me know if you are." 

Stannis wasn't breathing like someone who was comfortable, but perhaps he was just nervous about Davos's skill with a razor. "I won't cut you, my lord."

"I know you won't, Davos. That is one thing I do know." He tilted his head back. "You may begin." 

Davos tried to concentrate on his task without emotion, brushing lather over Stannis's cheeks as he'd done for men aboard ship who'd come to Davos for his steady hand. 

He wasn't sure if he'd be able to _stay_ steady now. For his part, Stannis sat very still, breathing controlled. 

"There you are," Davos said when he'd finished with the soap. His hand curled around the handle of the razor; he felt almost in a trance as he began to shave Stannis. How had he gotten to this point? This was surely too bold, too familiar, to do the work of a servant for his liege. 

But Stannis had agreed, where he might have grouchily refused and rung for a barber. And he was working with Davos, tilting his face so Davos could reach every angle of it. Davos reminded himself that Stannis had spent his life being shaved by others, just as he'd known how to be dressed when Davos had attired him before the battle.

Come to think of it, he hadn't objected to that, either and had even helped Davos in return when he'd struggled with his own boiled leather.

The memory of Stannis's touch almost made him slip, but he held firm.

"Are you all right?" Davos asked. Stannis's breathing seemed to have steadily increased. 

"Yes." Stannis seemed to take advantage to shift himself. He lifted the folds of the robe up over his lap. He wasn't hiding something… was he? "I trust you, Davos. You know that. I would trust you with anything."

Davos did not pause to give this too much thought. "Lean back a bit." 

Stannis obeyed, throat bobbing. 

"Tell me to stop if you want," Davos said. He pressed his fingers carefully to Stannis's neck, knowing how it might not be a welcome feeling to have a blade at one's neck when one had so recently been a prisoner marched around in such a fashion. 

"No." The word came out strangled, perhaps because Stannis was trying not to move. "I do not want you to stop." 

Davos moved slowly but steadily over Stannis's throat, watching his breathing for any sign that he should give him space. There was something satisfying about it, to watch Stannis emerge from the overgrowth of beard. 

His eyes had been closed through most of the procedure but when Davos was shaving his upper lip, he opened them. Davos nearly faltered. 

"I expect you to keep a steady hand," Stannis said with mock sternness. That almost undid him further, but he kept his mind to his task. 

A few more strokes and Stannis was fully divested of his beard. Stannis seized the towel from around his neck, wiped his face, and tossed it away.

"Put the razor down, Davos," he said.

Davos didn't move. He wasn't sure what was about to happen. 

"I am going to take you in my arms," Stannis said patiently, "and I do not wish for you to cut yourself in your surprise." 

A smile spread across Davos's face. "Thank you for your concern, my lord."

He set the razor on the table and was ready to receive Stannis when he rose and pulled Davos close. Whatever tension he'd been carrying seemed to hit him all at once. Stannis's grip on him tightened. 

"I do not understand why you don't leave," Stannis murmured into his hair. 

"I could never leave you." Davos looked up and slipped his arms around Stannis's neck. He wanted to admire his work, and he wanted to look him in the eye. 

This time when Stannis kissed him, he was prepared. He parted his lips, to show Stannis he wanted none of the chaste battlefield kiss they'd shared before. That had been a good-bye kiss, and Davos was through with good-byes. 

He pressed close to Stanns as though he could twine himself around him and was rewarded with Stannis's hands—Stannis's enormous hands, the subject of so many fantasies over the years—beginning to work on his doublet laces. 

He made a noise, and Stannis greedily kissed his neck.

"I had a thought, Davos," he said, "that if I were no longer king… we could… if wanted…" 

"I think we want to," Davos said teasingly. It seemed not a bad future, the two of them at Storm's End, left alone to do as they pleased. He was sorry Stannis had had to face defeat to get it, but he could not say he was unhappy about the development.

Stannis went for his breeches next, and Davos saw stars as Stannis's hand wrapped around his cock. 

"Stannis." He had never intended to actually say it out loud, but it seemed he had, because blue eyes were looking up at him with an air of cautious confusion. 

"Yes, Davos?" 

"Let us adjourn to the bed." It seemed a bold request, though they were already halfway there. Stannis rose and took Davos's hand; on the way, he grabbed the jar of oil that had been brought for his bath. Davos smiled at the thought of what Stannis had in mind for it. 

"I want this gone for one," he said, pulling on the belt of Stannis's robe. It fell away, and Davos could not help admiring what was there, though Stannis was still a bit underfed from his long campaign. His cock… well, Davos only wanted that one place. 

Stannis seemed to realize this. He kissed Davos, lips moving down his neck and over his chest. "At least I have you now, Davos."

"Always." He could have come simply from this, Stannis's mouth on him. He almost didn't need Stannis's long fingers sliding inside him and finding the place that made him cry out and his hips buck off the bed. 

But of course, he did need Stannis rolling him onto his side and wrapped his body around him. He could very much grow to like that, he thought, as Stannis eased inside him. Their joining felt as natural as anything they'd ever done; after all these years, there was still much to learn about Stannis and he felt giddy at the prospect of discovering all those little things. Such as the fact that Stannis never stopped kissing his neck, his fresh-shaved cheek moving across Davos's jaw. He also seemed to like to have their hands joined, his fingers slotted through Davos's shortened ones. 

They did not speak for a long time after they had finished; Stannis pulled out of him, but moved no further, so that they were still spooned together. Davos was half asleep when Stannis spoke. 

"Davos," he said. "I am not the king anymore." He sounded almost joyous at the prospect. "It would have been wrong for the Hand to fuck the king, or for the king to suck the Hand's cock, or for them to live a… decadent… life together." 

Davos smiled at the idea that their life would be decadent, unless one of them changed his tastes drastically, but it must seem that way to Stannis who had always denied himself pleasure. "I think that sounds splendid, Stannis." 

"Then we shall have it." Stannis wrapped his arms securely around Davos. 

There was more that could have been said, but they didn't need to. They had years.


End file.
